What did our early PMs sound like?

Sir Joseph Cook: Important political work in Australia, I should say that that took place in the post office when I first was appointed Postmaster-General. First thing I did was to cut down the telephone rates, to popularise them, put them on a popular footing, so that people were glad to purchase them and use them. At that time, around only 2 or 3000 altogether [were] in use. I cut the rate down from a flat rate of £12 per annum to a flat rate of £5 per annum, that was inclusive of everything. 

The result was, that a tremendous increase in the use of the telephone. Indeed, it seems to me that looking back, that they never caught up since. It was not long before we had many, many thousands and our difficulty, of course, was to keep up with the pressure. We did it, and today the telephone is in almost universal use. 

And another thing I did is erect 3 long-distance telephones, one to Newcastle, one to Bathurst and one to Goulburn. We constructed the one to Newcastle and it began to pay from the beginning, and it was not long before there were no less than 4 lines carrying traffic to Newcastle. Then the other one was to Bathurst in the west. This did not pay at the beginning, but by connecting up Lithgow and Katoomba, that also became a paying proposition. This took some time, and I left office before constructing the southern one to Goulburn. That was not constructed for 15 years afterwards. 

I left, of course, to go over to the mines department, mines and agriculture. We had had an election and my colleague Mr Sydney Smith lost his seat for Bathurst, and Mr Reid asked me particularly to go over and take charge of the mining department, and I was there for about 12 months. 

That was the time when Mr Farrer first made his appearance in connection with his wheat-breeding schemes. I very well remember discussing with him the conditions of his work. He was a peculiar man in some ways, great [inaudible] all, so great that I do not believe even he knew how great the work was which he was doing. He wouldn’t join the department as a public servant, nor would he receive more than £300 per annum in the way of salary. But he did [inaudible] being a public servant and he fixed his own conditions of work. And as I say, we paid him 300 a year for 3 days work per week. Like most men of that type, however, he gave us not only 3 but 6 full working days per week. And I’m not so sure it wasn’t 7. He was a wonderful man.  

His first work was to try and make, improve a wheat, which was already doing good work, but had rather a weak straw. We had told our farmers to put in Steinwedel wheat, which was popular in Victoria and was a great yielder. I think they got 40 bushels to the acre out of it. And we told them to put Steinwedel wheat in in NSW, that's to say our department did. The wheat grew here just as it had done in Victoria and we could have reaped our 40 bushels per acre as they did over there but for one difference, and that was the different atmosphere in NSW. We told them, for instance, to put Steinwedel wheat into the pastures of the northern districts, up in the mountains where the stormy winds do blow, and they blew the wheat out and down upon the ground and great was the fall thereof. 

Mr Farrer set to as his first work task, set himself as his first work, the task of making a stronger straw to carry this prolific wheat. Afterwards they came as famous... [interruption] no the wheat... He made many other kinds of wheat and his work became not only nationwide so far as Australia was concerned, but worldwide in character. Afterwards, I was amazed to find on going over the world on one engagement after another, to find that nearly every country outside Australia knew Mr Farrer, many of them better than we knew him ourselves. A great man. And I should say, he never knew really how great he was. 

Those were a few of the things that come to one’s mind in the retrospect. And with time and space many more [inaudible], that will suffice.  

The greatest thing of all, of course, was the prime ministership at the time of the declaration of war. And I should like to put one or 2 incidents in connection with this matter right. It appears that those who have written the history of these times, haven’t quite got the proper angle of the matter.  

For instance, it is said that I was on a political tour in Ballarat. As a matter of fact, when I received an intimation of the declaration of war, I was addressing a political meeting at Horsham, wither I had gone after leaving word and making all the arrangements to be instantly informed if the great tragedy fell upon the world. 

It is said that the first message which I received could not be read. This is quite incorrect. It is said that we hadn’t taken our, what do you call it, code with us. As a matter of fact, we had it with us and there was nothing the matter with the code, what was wrong was that the telegram had been sent with one or 2 faulty coded words and it was those that we could not make out. But we could make out enough to know that we were wanted back in Melbourne at the earliest possible moment, and we went.  

And again, it is stated that when I reached Melbourne on the Sunday morning, Mr Scott has written it down in his history, that they had to wait for me, that is the staff of the defence department had to wait for me until I came back from church. There is not a word of truth in this. I did not go to church on that fateful Sunday morning, what I did was to consult for about 2 hours with Mr George Knibbs, the statistician, who I found knew more about Germany and their preparedness for war than any other man that I have ever discussed the matter with. And those 2 hours were a revelation to me of the tremendous amount of reading Mr Knibbs had put into his study of Germany for some time before the war actually broke out. That was how I spent my Sunday morning and it was I who was waiting for the staff of the defence department to come to me and not they who waited for me. 

Another incident which might as well be set out exactly as it was, and as it is not quite set in the history, is the escape of a German ship from Sydney. What happened was this: Mr Millen and I and the Governor-General, were in the executive chamber when it occurred. And during our conversation the telephone bell rang, and Mr Millen, Minister of Defence at the time, went to answer the telephone call. What we heard was this: 'Why the devil didn't you sink her?' And the Governor-General turned to me and smiled and he said, ‘Prime Minister' he said, 'that sounds very like war'. She had come and she did bolt away, but we headed her back, and that ship is now doing duty under another name somewhere around the coasts of Australia. 

I only need add [in] regard to this, that I shall never reproach myself for what took place on the outbreak of war. I came to Sydney and the first thing I did was to send... [recording ends] 

Billy Hughes: Ladies and gentlemen, the issues before the people are quite clear. They are issues which intimately affect their daily lives. They go to the roots of our industrial, social and political systems. They are people questions and the people will decide them. But if the government had had its way the people would never have had the chance to do so. But my amendment compels those who tried to steal a march upon the people to face their masters.  

There are many issues for the people, but the outstanding issue of this election is arbitration. For 25 years the federal arbitration system has been an integral part of our industrial lives. Every government, irrespective of party, has championed it and sought to make it more effective. Mr Bruce has decreed that it must go. His action is without parallel in our history. For a quarter of a century we have pressed forward and he is the first to sound the bugle for a shameful retreat from a vital strategic point in our national life. 

769,000 unionists are registered in the Federal Court and 407,000 are working peacefully under its award. They are to be driven out of that industrial temple in which they have found shelter for a generation. But what is to become of them? 

For a quarter of a century we have sought to settle industrial disputes by law instead of direct action. For 6-and-a-half years Mr Bruce has loudly denounced direct action and championed the rule of law. Now he wipes out with one stroke every federal industrial law.  

In 1925 he appealed to the electors on the enforcement of the federal law. Last November he did so again. Addressing the Rotary Conference only last February, he said it would be a tragedy to abolish federal arbitration, that it was unthinkable that any government should do this, that he would never be a party to it. 

Today he says the federal control must be abolished without a day's delay. And for all this he says he has the mandate of the people. No more audacious claim was ever made by a public man. He has no mandate and he knows he has none. For he has condemned out of his own mouth, he says unless federal arbitration is destroyed, the cost of production cannot come down. We all believe in reducing costs of production, but what the people want to know is at whose expense the reduction is to be made. 

When they look at the forces behind Mr Bruce, they are in no doubt on this point. The worker is to pay. Every reactionary is behind Mr Bruce, they hail his policy as the beginning of the end of all arbitration, the basic wage all over Australia rests upon the foundation of the federal award. Destroy federal authority and down comes wages. What is to follow? 

Mr Bruce says they can go to the State Court. But in 1925 Mr Bruce said that the state could not deal with the industrial question, that it could only be dealt with on a national basis. Not only because of its fundamental importance, but also because varying hours in different states must destroy the equality in state constitution. Now he hands over all power to the State, which he says cannot deal with the petition. But that is not the work, for Mr Bavin tells us that if Mr Bruce is successful the State Court of New South Wales must go too. We don't know what he intends to put in its place, but a straw shows how the stream runs.  

Mr Bavin says the rural workers' award is to go. That reveals his purpose, only fools cannot see it. If the people vote for Mr Bruce and his followers, they will play into the hands of reactionaries who want reduced wages and longer hours.  

Let them [inaudible], let them turn a deaf ear to their honeyed words and golden promises, for the plain truth of the matter is this, that in the face of Mr Bruce's present policy and his pledges given to the electors at the last 2 elections, he stands [inaudible] to the people as a man whose word none can rely on.   

He and his followers have contemptuously trampled upon the platform of the National Party and broken the pledges they gave to the people. The basic principle of representative government that the men elected to represent the people shall be bound by the pledges they have given to the people is destroyed. For when men cease to do this, representative government becomes a hollow sound. What does it matter what Mr Bruce and his followers say? For they are men to whom no pledge is sacred.